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Examining acute bi-directional relationships between affect, physical feeling states, and physical activity in free-living situations using electronic ecological momentary assessment

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Abstract

Current knowledge about the relationship of physical activity with acute affective and physical feeling states is informed largely by lab-based studies, which have limited generalizability to the natural ecology. This study used ecological momentary assessment to assess subjective affective and physical feeling states in free-living settings across 4 days from 110 non-physically active adults (Age M = 40.4, SD = 9.7). Light physical activity (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) were measured objectively by an accelerometer. Multilevel modeling was used to test the bi-directional associations between affective and physical feeling states and LPA/MVPA minutes. Higher positive affect, lower negative affect and fatigue were associated with more MVPA over the subsequent 15 min, while higher negative affect and energy were associated with more LPA over the subsequent 15 and 30 min. Additionally, more LPA and MVPA were associated with feeling more energetic over the subsequent 15 and 30 min, and more LPA was additionally associated with feeling more negative and less tired over the subsequent 15 and 30 min. Positive and negative affective states might serve as antecedents to but not consequences of MVPA in adults’ daily lives. Changes in LPA may be predicted and followed by negative affective states. Physical feeling states appear to lead up to and follow changes in both LPA and MVPA.

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Acknowledgments

Project MOBILE was funded by American Cancer Society 118283-MRSGT-10-012-01-CPPB (Dunton, P. I). This work was also partially supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute under Grants 1R01HL119255 (Dunton, PI) and 1R21HL108018 (Dunton, Intille, PIs), and by a fellowship for Y. Liao supported by a grant from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Janice Davis Gordon Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship in Colorectal Cancer Prevention. The authors would like to thank Jennifer Beaudin, S.M. of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for programming the Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) protocols used in this study and making modifications to the MyExperience tool. The authors would also like to thank Michael Robertson of the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center for proofreading this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Behavioral Science, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd. Unit 1330, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Yue Liao

  2. Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Chih-Ping Chou, Jimi Huh, Adam Leventhal & Genevieve Dunton

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  1. Yue Liao
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  2. Chih-Ping Chou
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Correspondence to Yue Liao.

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Yue Liao, Chih-Ping Chou, Jimi Huh, Adam Leventhal, and Genevieve Dunton declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Liao, Y., Chou, CP., Huh, J. et al. Examining acute bi-directional relationships between affect, physical feeling states, and physical activity in free-living situations using electronic ecological momentary assessment. J Behav Med 40, 445–457 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-016-9808-9

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